WHILE the numbers in NSW remain comparatively low, the confirmation of a new coronavirus case at Port Stephens - together with warnings to customers of the Salamander Bay Shopping Centre and the Windsor Castle Hotel at East Maitland - reinforce the difficulties that we as a community must overcome if we are to avoid our version of the Victorian situation in this state.
Yesterday we reported a plea from Hunter New England Local Health District public health physician David Durrheim that this region's residents avoid travelling to Sydney unless it was absolutely necessary.
Similar requests are being made around the state for people to stay in their own regions if possible. Now we find that the new Port Stephens case - a man in his 60s - has likely contracted his COVID-19 infection from a Sydney visitor.
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This traveller also visited the Port Stephens shopping centre last Wednesday, and the East Maitland hotel, two evenings earlier, on the Monday.
Little can be done at either place, given the time that has elapsed.
It becomes a waiting game, then, to see if these two cases are part of a longer and ongoing chain, or whether our luck has held, and no further infections from these particular sources are reported.
Nationally, another 388 coronavirus cases were confirmed yesterday.
Victoria accounted for 374 of these: masks are recommended in regional areas of the state and compulsory from noon today in Melbourne and the adjacent Mitchell shire.
Tasmania reported one case and there were 13 here in NSW. One notable difference between NSW and Victoria, apart from numbers, is that authorities in this state appear to have a closer handle on the transmission routes of cases.
The latest update from Victoria shows that 1898 of its 6289 cases are "under investigation", with 1074 having an unknown domestic source.
By comparison, just 365 of this state's 1999 cases have an unknown domestic source, and none are "under investigation".
Additionally, only seven of the 66 NSW cases diagnosed in the past week are lacking a source.
While this does not mean NSW is out of the woods, it does indicate that we are not automatically headed for a Victorian situation, despite the emergence of the Port Stephens case.
We are, however, in for a tense few days, at the least.
ISSUE: 39,366.
